Tire shop over torqued lug nuts (1969 Dart). Should I redo it?

[gdrill]

Way overthought. I have three different types of wheel wrench that could be in a any of my vehicles, you know, the ones that don't "click"! The standard bar that came with the car, a 1 foot crossbar and an 18 inch crossbar. Never gonna be the same with any of them.

I use and impact on all my wheels in my shop. All. I go to number one and then number 4. I figure it is in the 100ftlb range. Never had an issue. I'm fairly certain 90........ok maybe 70% of us here never ever torqued our wheels when we changed them in the driveway or on the side of the road for decades of our driving lives.

Racing scenarios could be considered different. That is a situation of rules and regulations.

 

[Icetech]

Way overthought. I have three different types of wheel wrench that could be in a any of my vehicles, you know, the ones that don't "click"! The standard bar that came with the car, a 1 foot crossbar and an 18 inch crossbar. Never gonna be the same with any of them.

I use and impact on all my wheels in my shop. All. I go to number one and then number 4. I figure it is in the 100ftlb range. Never had an issue. I'm fairly certain 90........ok maybe 70% of us here never ever torqued our wheels when we changed them in the driveway or on the side of the road for decades of our driving lives.

Racing scenarios could be considered different. That is a situation of rules and regulations.

I air gun then check with a breaker bar after a few drives.. just cause paranoid

 

[MOPAROFFICIAL]

I would remove and inspect all of them. But, for years, auto shops would tighten lug nuts with an inpact wrench and no torque wrench..It's easy to tighten to 100+ ft/lb. Without damage. The smaller 7/16 diameter studs can't handle a lot of torque though.

For many years every time I would take off my steel wheels I would use the factory tire iron out of the trunk. I always tighten it till they made that little squeak sqwak sound on the last 2 lil leaned on turns of the iron. Never had an issue.
I myself wouldn't be settled with knowing there was only 55 lbs on the lugs.
They were probably more like 80 or so lbs, till they didn't turn is how I torqued them.
lol

 

[Icetech]

I go til it feels like righty tighty is going to turn into rightly loosey

 

[Dne007]

A few months ago, our oldest daughter took her Honda CRV to a local shop in an attempt to find a noise in the right front area. They gave an estimate of 5500 bucks to replace all ties rods, rack assembly and struts. Wound up being the CV axle on that side discovered by me. When I got to it, I'd use my 1/2" air impact, but wouldn't budge the lug nuts, so bring out the long breaker bar, that didn't do it, so put an "extension" on it and that did it! I never have used a torque wrench on lugs, I know what's tight enough;)

 

[413]

This is why I bought my own tire machine and balancer. Been 19 years now, I'm money and time ahead. Fix my own flats now also.

No more trusting the monkeys with my nice vintage wheels. They are mostly lost out there.

 

[gdrill]

For many years every time I would take off my steel wheels I would use the factory tire iron out of the trunk. I always tighten it till they made that little squeak sqwak sound on the last 2 lil leaned on turns of the iron. Never had an issue.
I myself wouldn't be settled with knowing there was only 55 lbs on the lugs.
They were probably more like 80 or so lbs, till they didn't turn is how I torqued them.
lol

LOL, I forgot about the torque squeak! I'm sure it is in the FSM.

 

[340sFastback]

I set my impact on low, cross tighten, then I hand with wrench tighten snug....

 

[RAT ROD AL]

Tire shop guy once told. They would rather have you come back to loosen your wheel than it come off for being loose

 

[RAT ROD AL]

My thoughts are , I can screw things up a lot cheaper than paying some Idiot to screw it up !

 

[Professor Fate]

OP, get those wheels off and inspect, reinstall and torque them however you like (by the squeak, with a beam wrench, or by feel- whatever you are comfortable with). Then tell everybody you know to stay away from those clowns.
A beam wrench is perfectly acceptable, and in my book is preferable. Click types are rarely calibrated correctly, and even dial types should be recalibrated regularly. Beam wrenches generally will be good as long as the indicator consistently returns to zero. They're simple and foolproof.
Drum brakes are more forgiving of excessive torque, but disc brakes can get distorted by an ape man with a rattle gun set to "kill". And as mentioned, the studs (especially 7/16 studs) will take a serious beating, if not fail right off the bat.
The lug nuts don't "slip", they either tighten up or the studs fail. Makes me wonder if those monkeys were even using the right size socket...
If I was in a particularly feisty mood, I'd go back to the shop manager with your torque wrench (they obviously don't have or use one) and show them how over-torqued the studs are- and what a tapered nut and seat actually look like. Then I would show them what a set of new factory studs (esp. left-hand ones, if you can even find them) costs and ask if they would rather eat these costs and the labor, or train their people to do the job right... You might even want to have the cost of a set of repro wheels handy if the seats are mangled. You won't get anything out of it but the satisfaction, but you'll get your wheels re-torqued, and if anything fails on removal, they'll be on the hook for it.
That may open his eyes.
Yes, I've had my share of bad experiences at tire shops and am a bitter old man about it- does it show?

 

[Dana67Dart]

Call me Karen!

 

[RustyRatRod]

I have a 1969 Dart with the original steel wheels. I was getting new tires and I don't know how many times I told them the spec for the lug nuts was 55 ft lbs of torque.

When they were done they claimed some of lug bolts on one wheel were slipping and they couldn't torque it enough. They tried to convince me on this basis that the holes in the wheels were also wearing out; that the lug nuts were worn out, because they shouldn't be conical shaped (i.e. flat where they seat into the wheel); and that I probably need all new wheels. This was a supposedly respectable tire shop that knew about old cars.

Anyway, when I got home I decided to take off the wheel in question to look at what it would take to replace the slipping lug bolts (see it they were swaged or not). The lug nuts were almost impossible to loosen. I had that wheel on and off a bunch of times when I was working on the brakes recently and I knew this was way too tight. I was using as a breaker bar one of those old torque wrenches with the needle that points to the torque level and I could see it was taking 80 to 90 ft lbs, before the lug nuts started to move. Also there were little shavings of metal that came off the wheels (or maybe the nuts) as I loosened the lug nuts, which I have never seen before when removing the wheels on this car.

When I put the wheel back on I torqued it properly and in fact none of the lug bolts slipped (which makes me think if it really was slipping, it was because they were over torquing it--but I don't even know at this point that I believe it was slipping).

So should I care that the other three wheels are probably also over torqued? Should I take them off and do it correctly? Or not worry about it until I have to take them off again?

BUY a factory service manual for your car. READ it front to back more than once. LEARN to work on your own car.

 

[Dana67Dart]

There is a reason for torque specs.

And yes I torque my lug nuts EVERYTINE on Every Car.

Kind of annoying video but good explanation


a video with graphs that clearly show the yield point

 

[RustyRatRod]

There is a reason for torque specs.

And yes I torque my lug nuts EVERYTINE on Every Car.

View attachment 1716483456

I agree. 55 LB FT will hold just fine.

 

[Ricks70Duster340]

I have a digital torque wrench that I use for lug nuts simply because it gives an audible tone.

I also did the same thing as @Princess Valiant and took the tires and wheels to the shop separately and mounted them at home, myself

I always do that with my classic cars! No min wage monkey is gonna mess up my cars!!!

 

[RustyRatRod]

Ifin ya "jes gotta" use an impact, these work very well.

https://www.amazon.com/ACCELLEA-Limiting-Extension-Standard-Color-Coded/dp/B0DMN9KYGR/?tag=fabo03-20

 

[Princess Valiant]

Ifin ya "jes gotta" use an impact, these work very well.

http://[URL][URL]https://www.amazon...dard-Color-Coded/dp/B0DMN9KYGR/?tag=fabo03-20

[/URL][/URL]

That's not a bad price, they used to be a lot more and a lot harder to come by

 

[toolmanmike]

Ifin ya "jes gotta" use an impact, these work very well.

https://www.amazon.com/ACCELLEA-Limiting-Extension-Standard-Color-Coded/dp/B0DMN9KYGR/?tag=fabo03-20

You know Rusty, it's hard to believe how close they are to torque and quite consistant if used properly.

 

[RustyRatRod]

You know Rusty, it's hard to believe how close they are to torque and quite consistant if used properly.

Yup and it's SO easy to do!

 

[cosgig]

I use a 4 way. I spin it with the tire up in the air until it bump stops, do all 4 and get the car back on the ground, then go around and tighten them to about 60 with my Armstrong 4 way. After 40 years and hundreds, no wait, 1000’s of tire changes, I know exactly how much to tighten them.

Now my brother, Mr Tootite, he always tightens everything to the breaking point. We call it the Uncle Greggy Tighten.

 

[lemondana]

Go back in there and call them STUPID MOTHER FUCKERS loud enough for the whole store to hear it.
Many years ago, I saw a 69 Barracuda on a lift and the mechsnic was bitching how all of the left side lug nuts twisted off, I told that stupid ****** to wise up a little bit. I was working in that town that day and we were actually working right across the street from the car owner. When he came home, I went over and told him to go down there and raise hell. Some of these dumb asses working in these stores, I swear?

 

[Dana67Dart]

Some of these dumb asses working in these stores, I swear

I get that LH lug studs are VERY not normal, but the L on the end should be a giveaway

 

[Kern Dog]

LEFT hand lug nuts were used on other cars, not just ours.

 

[Ozyduster]

I always take the wheels off my cars to take to tyre shop unless its my gladiator as not preasious about that. Funny tho, i got some walker evens bead locks cheap for it. Bloke said he had stripped a few threads. He had been using a rattle gun to do the bead lock bolts up on the aluminium wheels. I googled the torque speck should be about 20ft pound he had them at 70 lol Some people just shouldnt be allowed rattle guns